Trump cabinet list bespeaks concentration camps

The New York Times on Nov. 21 released Donald Trump's "short list" for cabinet appointments—compiled based on "information from the Trump transition team, lawmakers, lobbyists and Washington experts." The picks for Homeland Security are particularly notable. Joe Arpaio, his long reign of terror as Maricopa County sheriff finally ended by federal indictment and getting booted by the voters this year, is now being considered to oversee the Border Patrol and entire federal immigration apparatus. From his election in the early '90s, Arpaio ran a "Tent City" detainment camp for undocumented immigrants and others caught up in his sweeps. In an unsubtle moment in 2010, caught on film and reported by Pheonix New Times (despite his transparent later denials), he actually responded to a question at a public meeting about whether he would start using "concentration camps" by boasting: "I already have a concentration camp... It's called Tent City."

Also "short-listed" for Homeland Security is Rudolph Giuliani, who also brings such fascistic credentials. In 1981, as number-three man in the Reagan Justice Department, Giuliani headed the program of forcibly detaining thousands of Haitian refugees behind barbed wire at Camp Krome, a Florida military base, where overcrowding and appalling conditions quickly drew protest from human rights organizations. When the refugees launched suit in federal court to overturn the internment policy, Giuliani became the policy's top legal defender, asking a US appeals court to strike down a lower court order that 1,800 refugees be released. Thrity-three Haitian women at the camp went on hunger strike to demand their freedom during the case, and had to be fed intravenously. But Giuliani insisted the refugees were economic migrants and were not fleeing persecution in Haiti—even making a junket to Haiti to be personally assured by brutal dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier that there was no human rights crisis on the island.

The LA Times reports that Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state tapped to join Trump's immigration policy transition team (nationally known as the author of both anti-immigrant and voter supression laws), has submitted a "Strategic Plan" that calls for reinstating the post-9-11 National Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERs) screening and tracking program that was ended in 2005.

Rudolph Giuliani, "short-listed" for Homeland Security chief by president-elect Trump, boasts of his supposed success in fighting crime as mayor of New York City. But his aggressive policing tactics were assailed as racist and made New York the cannabis arrest capital of America. See full story at Global Ganja Report...

Giving credit where it is due, Obama issued an order formally dismantling the suspended NSEERs program, meaning Trump would have to start over from scratch in reviving a similar "registry." But asked in the aftermath of the Berlin attack whether he still intended to set up a registry for Muslims and impose a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants, Trump said, "You know my plans." (NYT, Dec. 22)